“Forget The Pundits”: Red-State Women Are The Ones Fighting Toughest Battles On Behalf Of Women And They’ll Transform America
Public Policy Polling is out with a new survey showing that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has actually increased his lead over state Sen. Wendy Davis in the wake of her nationally heralded filibuster against SB 5, the draconian antiabortion legislation Perry’s trying to pass in a second special section. It should be noted that Davis isn’t even a candidate for governor at this point, so this is a theoretical matchup absent any kind of campaign.
Still, the poll numbers are likely to bolster the already strong cynicism of Texas political observers about the chance that Davis could beat Perry if she fulfilled the dream of many liberal women nationwide and ran against him next year. Similarly, most journalists dismiss the chance that Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lunderman Grimes can knock off Sen. Mitch McConnell. But the rise of these red-state women is good news for Democrats, even if pundits say they can’t beat right-wing veterans (and national villains among liberals) like McConnell and Perry next year (and I’m not conceding that here). In most red states, the best hope for Democrats is a rising coalition of Latinos, black people, Asians, young voters and white women. Davis and Grimes could accelerate the future.
I’ve been struck by even liberal Texas reporters minimizing Davis’ chances, and suggesting that the national groundswell of support will hurt her in her home state. Writing in the New York Times, Texas Tribune reporter Jay Root reports that it “puzzles” Matthew Dowd, a former George W. Bush strategist, that Davis and her backers “are allying themselves with Hollywood actresses and handing Mr. Perry the ideological battle he so desperately needs to revive his standing — at least with the right,” Root writes.
“The best thing to do with Rick Perry is to make people laugh at him,” Dowd told Root. “If you get into a sort of ideological thing, and into a back and forth, that’s how Rick Perry survives.”
Another Texas Tribune writer, Ross Ramsey, wrote a piece headlined “For Davis, Opportunity Knocks at Inopportune Time,” arguing that the Fort Worth Democrat is little known outside her district and the state party is poorly organized to give her a statewide lift. “It’s her bad luck that she’s the fastest runner on a team that can’t seem to find its way to the track,” he writes. But then he concludes his piece by seeming to contradict it, claiming that if Davis doesn’t run now, “she’ll never have a better shot.” That’s puzzling – to follow his logic, she’d have a better shot if Democrats were better organized in a few years. So I’m not convinced anyone knows for sure that Davis can’t beat Perry.
The truth is, I’m a lifelong blue-state resident, and I don’t presume to suggest I know Texas politics better than these men. I was convinced Rick Perry humiliated and hurt himself with his laughable 2012 presidential run, where he famously forgot the agencies he wanted to cut and made sweet love to a bottle of maple syrup. Instead today he’s stronger than ever with his Texas GOP base. But I do know this: Red-state Democratic women are the ones fighting the toughest battles on behalf of women’s rights – and they seem pretty happy about the attention.
On Tuesday alone, new abortion restrictions took effect in five red states — Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi and South Dakota – all passed by Republican legislatures and signed by Republican governors. Kansas’ new law requires abortion doctors to tell their patients right-wing lies: that an abortion puts them at high risk for breast cancer (totally unfounded by science) and that after 20 weeks, a fetus feels pain and “abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” Again, medical experts say neither is true. In South Dakota, women must wait 72 hours before obtaining an abortion – and weekends don’t count, which means some women will wait six days. Indiana women must undergo ultrasounds. In Mississippi and Alabama, women can no longer obtain a prescription for an early abortion drug via teleconference; they must now go to a doctor’s office. The hypocrites who claim to oppose late-term abortion are ensuring that all abortions will at least be later-term in these states.
Even as women’s votes were credited with reelecting President Obama on the national level, statehouse Republicans are restricting their rights. So national feminists and Democrats have got to turn their attention to these red states, along with purple states like Wisconsin and Ohio where Scott Walker and John Kasich are acting like they govern Mississippi when it comes to women’s rights. Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner’s decision to run for secretary of state is welcome news, in a state known for its attempts to limit voting rights (as well as its failure to elect any black Democrats statewide, ever).
We know that eventually, Texas will be a blue state. That day will arrive sooner if Latino voter turnout rises. Texas women’s groups are paying a lot of attention to the Latina vote, since Latinas are less likely than other groups to go to the polls. Young Latinas are also more likely to be pro-choice, so this is an opportunity to use this battle to make more of them voters.
At any rate, I find it encouraging to see national Democrats paying attention to Texas, with projects like Battleground Texas driven by Obama campaign veterans, most notably Jeremy Bird. Nobody expected Obama to pour money into Texas or Kentucky in 2012; the goal was to win, and there were plenty of states where he had a better chance, as well as some purple states, like Ohio, that he couldn’t afford to lose. But it’s unconscionable for national Democrats to ignore opportunities – and need – in the state that gave us Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan.
Likewise, I’d like to see national Democrats more engaged in the Grimes race. She’s gotten criticism for a lackluster announcement on Monday and her Web presence is minimal. McConnell is unpopular in Kentucky and knocking him off in 2014, while unlikely, would be a sign that Democrats will leave no state behind. McConnell’s campaign gave Grimes a favor Tuesday by releasing a bizarre autotuned ad that made fun of her name but actually served to get me to be able to type it from memory. (Oh, and they misspelled McConnell’s name in the ad.) So his team may not be the second coming of Obama 2012.
Meanwhile, the Texas battle over abortion rages on, with the Legislature expected to vote next week in the second special session called by Perry. I got into a little Twitter discussion with Matthew Dowd, after I Tweeted that he’d “trashed” the involvement of Hollywood actresses in the Times piece. “Wasn’t trashing celebrities, was just saying [Davis] only helps Perry by involving national media and celebs.” Point taken; trashing was useful shorthand in 140 characters; “dismissing” or “disdaining” would have been more accurate.
But Dowd knows Texas past and present, not necessarily its future. I’m not ready to concede that Planned Parenthood’s wrangling television stars like “Law and Order: SVU’s” Stephanie March (a Texas native), Lisa Edelstein of “House” or Connie Britton, who played Tami Taylor in the legendary Texas football series “Friday Night Lights,” are just “Hollywood” liberals who are going to drive more Texans into the arms of Rick Perry.
That PPP poll that found Davis trailing Perry also found that she’d doubled her in-state name recognition, from 34 percent to 68 percent, since January. More significant, she is now the best-liked Texas political figure among those PPP tested statewide — and the third-best-known after Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. That’s not bad for a Fort Worth lady in tennis shoes. National Democrats are going to keep paying attention to Texas; the women of Texas deserve no less.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, July 2, 2013
“The Texas Rebellion”: Wendy Davis Gives New Hope To The Future For American Women
A rowdy crowd of women making demands as loudly as they can—and winning? That sort of thing doesn’t happen in Texas. Except that now, apparently, it does.
Beginning on Tuesday morning and stretching into the wee hours of Wednesday, Democrat Wendy Davis, a state senator from Fort Worth, became a national pro-choice hero as thousands of Texans flooded the state capitol to cheer her effort to stop a draconian anti-abortion bill. Governor Rick Perry had added abortion restrictions to the agenda halfway through a special session of the legislature originally intended to pass new redistricting maps. Before the session ended at midnight on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers hoped to rush through what would have been one of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion laws. For 11 hours, Davis filibustered a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks and shut down all but five of the state’s abortion clinics.
It was high drama: If Davis could hold out till midnight, she’d block the bill. It wouldn’t be easy. Under Texas’s strict filibuster rules, the senator could not eat, drink, use the bathroom, or even lean on the lectern. She couldn’t simply read from the phone book, either; she had to talk about the abortion bill or, after three warnings, the majority Republicans could force her to sit down. As the hours went by, Davis’s following grew. Nearly 180,000 followed the livestream from the Senate floor. The news spread on Twitter, where the state senator went from around 1,200 followers to over 67,000. Celebrities like Lena Dunham and Julianne Moore tweeted out support. So did President Obama, who wrote: “Something special is happening in Austin tonight,” with the hashtag “StandWithWendy.” The hashtag trended worldwide for hours.
But in the end it was the hundreds of pro-choice activists in the gallery who killed the bill in one of the most dramatic moments in Texas political memory. While Davis became the face of the effort, she was also just one part of a movement that organized swiftly and effectively. It was a feat of organization, and a show of progressive energy, that will provide a shot of energy for Democrats’ to turn the state blue.
The showdown began on Thursday with an unexpected turnout from pro-choice activists. When the House State Affairs Committee considered the anti-abortion measure, 600 activists flooded the hearing, conducting what they called a “citizen’s filibuster.” According to one lawmaker, 92 percent of those who came to testify opposed the bill. One after another, pro-choice Texans told their stories as hours ticked by. Around 4 a.m. on Friday, the Republican committee chair finally cut off testimony, calling the statements “repetitive.” The committee passed the bill quietly the next day and the House recessed until Sunday, when House Republicans planned to use technical maneuvers to fast-track the measure.
On Sunday, pro-choice activists again packed the gallery, far outnumbering the opposition. Progressives from across the country began sending food and coffee to show support. House Democrats managed to use amendments and points of order to delay the bill for more than a day, buying enough time to make a Senate filibuster possible. By the time the House finally passed the measure, it couldn’t be heard in the Senate until Tuesday. The filibuster was on.
Davis was the obvious choice to lead the filibuster. Since first being elected in 2008, when she unseated a powerful Republican lawmaker, Davis has stood out as a progressive firebrand unafraid of antagonizing her Republican colleagues. Her biography alone is impressive; a former teen mom living in a trailer, Davis put herself through both college and law school, where she graduated valedictorian. She’s unabashed in talking about her experiences with poverty and her reliance on Planned Parenthood for health care; during the filibuster, she called it “her medical home.” Davis had ended the regular legislative session in 2011 with a filibuster of $5.4 billion in cuts to public schools. That one only took an hour and a half, however, and was largely for show; the legislature came back in a special session and cut the money. But it earned Davis, who’s seen as a future statewide candidate, icon status among Texas’s long-put-upon progressives.
By the time Davis’s filibuster began on Tuesday morning, it wasn’t just the Senate gallery that was packed. Throughout the capitol and spilling outside, people wore burnt orange T-shirts, the color associated with the Texas cause (and not coincidentally, with the University of Texas). Many read, “Stand with Texas Women.” Davis read testimony from women who weren’t allowed to testify at Thursday’s committee hearing. She took questions defending her position. She spoke deliberately, was careful to avoid leaning on the podium, and occasionally paced slowly around her desk as she spoke.
As the hours ticked by, Republican senators watched like hawks for Davis to slip up. At the six-hour mark, Davis got her first warning for talking about funding for Planned Parenthood and women’s health programs—which, according to the chair, were not germane to a bill on abortion restrictions. She got another when a colleague helped her put on a back brace. The gallery was beginning to get restless when all hell broke loose around 10 p.m. With just two hours to go, Davis received her third warning—this time for mentioning a pre-abortion sonogram requirement the chamber passed last session. Her Democratic colleagues began trying to stall, raising parliamentary inquiries and appeals. Republicans scrambled to end the filibuster and take a vote before the clock hit midnight and the special session was over.
With 15 minutes to go, it looked like the Senate Democrats couldn’t hold out. Republicans were trying to vote as Democrats attempted to concoct more procedural delays. The spectators were subdued and anxious. Then things went crazy. First, the chair refused to recognize a motion to adjourn from Senator Leticia van de Putte, a Democrat who had just arrived from her father’s funeral. Van de Putte tried to make another motion, but the chair once again did not recognize her. Finally, exasperated, she called out: “At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be heard over the male colleagues in the room?
That did it. The spectators began to cheer, overwhelming the attempts of the chair to quiet them down. For a full quarter of an hour, they shouted and screamed with unceasing volume, as Republicans tried to get a vote on the bill. After midnight came and went, the Senate Republicans argued that they did take a vote and had prevailed. But the record showed otherwise; screenshots captured the Texas Legislative website showing the vote had been taken on June 26, after midnight.
Senators convened a closed-door caucus meeting to try and sort out what had actually happened. The gallery was cleared in the Senate chamber, but nobody left. People in burnt-orange T-shirts were everywhere—in the capitol rotunda, outside the building, in the hallways. It wasn’t until after 2 a.m. that word broke: The session was over, the bill was dead, and pro-choice Texans had won.
It was the kind of landmark victory that Texas progressives haven’t seen in years—a couple of decades, really. Not surprisingly, conservatives didn’t mince words about the proceedings. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, who’s been blamed by Republicans for the madness in his chamber, complained that the activists were “an unruly mob.” State Representative Bill Zedler tweeted, “We had terrorist [sic] in the Texas State Senate opposing [the bill].”
But these activists weren’t terrorists. They were the Texans that national observers rarely see—and they are helping to plant the seeds of a progressive revival in the state. As I watched people happily file out of the capitol in the early morning hours, it was striking to see the vast array of ages and races. Young hipsters and older soccer moms all seemed united. Most of those who have talked about a potential sea change in Texas politics have focused on Latino mobilization. (I just wrote a feature on the subject.) But Texas women have also been under-organized (and less Democratic than in other states), and they are another key to any potential progressive movement in the state. And while Davis was the face of the effort, it was pro-choice women’s spontaneous burst of engagement that shook up Texas politics this week.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, June 26, 2013
“A Citizen Filibuster”: Fed Up And Determined, Progressive Activists Just Might Secure A Victory For Reproductive Rights In Texas
Two years ago, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring that women seeking abortions first have a sonogram. If it’s early in a pregnancy, the law would require submitting to a transvaginal sonogram, with a wand inserted into the vagina. Even though a similar measure subsequently stirred national controversy in Virginia, prompting its defeat, progressives in Texas could barely mount a fight. Passage was inevitable, everyone knew, and the cause quixotic—because, after all, this was Texas.
That era may be over. For the past several days, activists have been waging a pitched battle in Austin against Senate Bill 5, a measure that would severely restrict abortions after 20 weeks and close most of the state’s abortion clinics. Since Thursday night, hundreds of activists have been protesting, packing galleries and committee hearings and every spare nook of the capitol. The intensity of the public outcry is notable in a state known for low voter turnout and a vastly outnumbered Democratic Party. With the session ending on Tuesday night, if lawmakers and activists can keep up the pressure, they may be able to kill the bill.
Texas’s regular legislative session ended last month, but governors can call special sessions to address specific “emergency” legislation. At first, Rick Perry called this one to approve new redistricting maps. It was only halfway through the month-long gathering that he added abortion restrictions to the agenda.
A hearing on Thursday in the House State Affairs Committee set off the clock-ticking drama. More than 600 pro-choice advocates arrived to voice their opposition to the clinic regulations and the 20-week ban. The activists made up 92 percent of those who signed up to testify; they called their effort a “citizen filibuster.” The chair began to get restless with the testimony, calling it “repetitive,” and eventually cut off debate—but not until 4 a.m. The committee approved the legislation and sent it to the floor.
By Sunday, when the House convened to debate and vote, the fight had reached a fever pitch. The House had multiple bills, but because of the time crunch decided to focus on Senate Bill 5. The measure requires that all abortions, including those performed by giving a woman a pill, be performed in clinics that meet surgical standards—a requirement normally reserved for surgical procedures that require incision. That requirement would prompt the closure of more than 30 clinics across the state; only five clinics in Texas currently meet the “surgical ambulatory care” standard. The measure also has an outsized impact on rural women, since it requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within a 30-mile radius.
The House version of the bill adds a ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, unless the life of the mother is in danger or the fetus has birth defects so severe that it could die. The addition of the abortion ban means the bill must go back to the Senate for approval. With only two days left to complete all business, however, that gave House Democrats a chance to delay the bill and give their colleagues in the Senate a chance at a filibuster to kill it.
Activists flooded the capitol, most clad in burnt orange T-shirts, the color of the University of Texas, reading: “Stand with Texas Women.” They filled the House gallery, outnumbering pro-life advocates who were wearing blue. Allies from other states sent pizzas to keep them fed, and local shops began sending supplies of food and coffee.
Using parliamentary tactics, Democrats successfully delayed consideration of the bill for hours. They submitted more than two dozen amendments designed to showcase the absurdity of the bill. (One would have required a preponderance of peer-reviewed scientific evidence to justify the ban.) When questioned about the lack of support in the medical community for the bill, the sponsor, Republican Representative Jodie Laubenberg, explained that she knew a gynecologist who supported the bill. The Texas Medical Association and Texas Hospital Association, as well as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, all oppose the measure.
Points of order followed amendments as the hours ticked by. In perhaps the most notable exchange, Democratic Representative Senfronia Thompson offered an amendment to exempt rape and incest victims from the ban. She stood with a coat hanger in her hand, and asked her colleagues, “Do you want to return to the coat hanger? Or do you want to give them an option to terminate their pregnancy because they have been raped?”
Laubenberg responded with the latest in a Republican pantheon of spectacular misstatements on abortion: She implied that rape kits prevent pregnancy because “a woman can get cleaned out.” Her remark prompted widespread criticism and mockery from social media. After that, Laubenberg stopped directly responding to amendments. But her lack of knowledge about rape and pregnancy put her in company with a number of U.S. congressmen. During the 2012 election, Missouri’s Congressman Todd Akin argued that women’s bodies had ways of “shutting down” the possibility of pregnancy after a “legitimate rape”; more recently, Arizona’s Trent Franks noted that the odds of pregnancy after rape were “very low.”
The Texas bills are part of a larger national fight. Just last week, the U.S. Congress passed a similar 20-week abortion ban; though the measure has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, it helped showcase the chasm between Democrats and Republicans on the issue. Earlier this year, North Dakota passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, outlawing all abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which usually occurs around six weeks into pregnancy. That law is currently making its way through litigation. Generally, such measures aren’t faring well in court. Idaho’s 20-week ban was found unconstitutional in March by the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, and in May, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Arizona’s 20-week ban.
The battle in Texas raged on until Republicans cut off debate around 4 a.m. Monday morning, finally passing the bill on the floor for the first time. They returned fewer than three hours later to vote it through again, as required by procedural rules. Later Monday morning, they passed a required “third reading,” which sends the bill to the Senate. However, there’s a 24-hour waiting period before the Senate can take up the bill and pass it in its turn.
That means the bill will reach the Texas Senate on Tuesday morning. Democrats have vowed a filibuster, which would block the bill’s passage. They will only have to hold out until midnight on Tuesday to give reproductive rights supporters a surprising victory in Texas.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, June 24, 2013
“Obamacare Is For Republicans, Too”: If GOP Governors Think Stonewalling Health Exchanges Hurts Only Democrats, They’re Wrong
Three months from now, Americans will get their first look at whether Obamacare works. The answer will depend a lot on Republican governors and legislatures — and they should want the law’s exchanges to be successful as much as the president does.
The new state insurance exchanges are supposed to start selling health coverage Oct. 1. The idea behind these marketplaces is that allowing apple-to-apple comparisons between health plans will foster competition and lower prices. Most Republican governors and legislatures, however, have resisted running their own exchanges; 19 states have refused to play any role whatsoever.
Continued resistance could hamper an already fraught process. In a report this week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned that the federal government is behind schedule in building exchanges in states that have refused to do so. This makes it even more crucial that all states pitch in to help.
Why should Republican opponents of the exchanges change tack now? First, there are the crass politics: Many residents who stand to benefit are their constituents. Federal exchange subsidies are available for people earning between 138 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level, or $32,500 to $94,200 for a family of four. According to 2012 exit polls, 42 percent of people with family incomes between $30,000 and $50,000 voted for Mitt Romney; for those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, the share was 52 percent. If Republican governors think stonewalling exchanges hurts only Democrats, they’re wrong.
Then there are the economic reasons: States with weak exchanges could become less attractive to businesses. John Hickenlooper, the Democratic governor of Colorado, said this week that his state supports its insurance exchange in part to help small businesses, which want healthy and productive workers.
Finally, and most compellingly, there is the human reason – – rather, 25 million human reasons. Well-run exchanges will make getting health insurance easier and more affordable. Even philosophical opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act must concede this practical point. Obamacare also happens to be the law of the land.
Some Republican governors have already accepted a role in their exchanges. Iowa and Michigan are partnering with the federal government, while Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico agreed to build their own. It’s too late for other states to follow those courses, but there are still meaningful steps they could take.
One thing they can do is smooth the path for “navigators” – – people or organizations that will help others shop for insurance on the exchanges. Florida requires navigators to register with the state, and Pennsylvania is considering a similar move. This should be fine as long as registration is quick and straightforward.
States should also build solid lines of communication between the exchanges and state-run programs, especially Medicaid. Exchanges can use the information that states keep about people’s income and insurance status to determine whether they’re eligible for subsidies. Easy access to Medicaid databases will mean fewer errors and faster service for people in both programs.
State insurance regulators, who have the authority to approve insurance plans sold on federally run exchanges, can do their part by monitoring the participating insurance plans aggressively enough to keep rates down.
Perhaps the single biggest thing Republican officials could do is simply be ready and willing to address the inevitable hiccups. If states look for ways to stall progress, they’ll find them. Conversely, if governors who oppose the law nonetheless direct their officials to cooperate, the exchanges are more likely to survive those hiccups.
Governors could set a positive tone by reminding their residents that the exchanges are coming. Instead of saying the exchanges “are not going to work,” as Texas Governor Rick Perry did in December, they should encourage their constituents to see whether they’re eligible for subsidies. It doesn’t need to cost the states anything.
By: The Editors, Bloomberg, June 20, 2013
“He’s Still An Idiot”: Will Rick “Oops” Perry Do It Again?
As soon as Rick Perry uttered his infamous “oops” during the Republican presidential primary, most Americans likely figured the Texas governor’s political career would soon fade to black. Even before he forgot which federal departments he wanted to axe, Perry’s performance had been less than inspiring, and the aftermath only made things worse, culminating with an overtly homophobic ad complaining that “there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” I’m guessing once Perry finally suspended his campaign, those outside Texas imagined he’d return to Austin and quietly wait out the rest of his gubernatorial term.
But his latest decisions—including a string of more than two dozen vetoes—seems to only further confirm what most Texas insiders have been saying for months: Perry is paving the way for a second act and a second bid for the White House. And he’s not moving toward the center.
The series of votoes has placed him clearly on the right and in a position to play to a national audience. Republicans dominate the Texas Legislature, and any bill that passes through it by definition has significant Republican support. Among other things, Perry chose to kill a measure meant to stop wage discrimination against women and a bill to require transparency for dark-money groups—both issues Tea Party Republicans at the national level have opposed. (Significantly for state governance, he also vetoed measures to allow the legislature some oversight of the University of Texas Board of Regents, which has been at war with the school’s president, Bill Powers.) Perry also took out his veto pen for smaller line items, like nixing $1.5 million—pocket change in the budget—that would have funded the University of Texas’s Mexican-American Studies Center. In doing so, he could both take a small swipe at the university and also offer a nod to those in his party not so pleased by studies of Mexican history or culture.
Meanwhile, Perry is also burnishing his conservative credentials in other ways. During the regular legislative session, his presence loomed darkly over Medicaid expansion, preventing more moderate Republicans from considering measures that would increase healthcare coverage for low-income residents—one-in-four Texans are uninsured. He brought the legislature back for a special session to task them with passing redistricting maps—hoping to keep a couple Congressional seats in Republicans hands, which could win him some favors in Washington. He added to the agenda a charge to pass an abortion ban for all pregnancies over 20 weeks, which would make Texas among the most restrictive states in the country. Just to keep things interesting he also added a measure to prevent groping from Transportation Security Administration officials at airports—a major focus for Tea Party folks and followers of conspiracy-theorist Alex Jones. All of it puts Perry on the far right, socially and politically.
Economically, Perry’s making his case by going to enemy territory—liberal states on both coasts—and urging companies, in particular gun manufacturers, to relocate to Texas. He ran television ads in California and Illinois noting why businesses would be better off in Texas, and just yesterday prompted a confrontation with Connecticut’s Governor Dannel Malloy when he started urging gun makers in Connecticut to relocate, after lawmakers passed gun control measures in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. Perry’s interest in business has always been a big part of his political platform, as he often reels off the companies that move to Texas for its super-business-friendly climate. (If only consumers in the state got such a good deal.)
Plenty in Austin are speculating as to whether Perry plans to make another bid for governor or simply wait to run for president. At the very least, a presidential bid would give Perry a chance remake his national image and be remembered for something other than “oops.” While it’s hard to think of another politician screwing up quite that badly and then seeing national success, plenty of folks have come back from disappointing runs and recreated themselves. A run for president, and showing the country he’s not an idiot, would help Perry regardless of whether he’s actually got a shot at winning or simply angling for a presidential appointment. But Perry’s term is up in 2014, and he’s already held the office longer than anyone else. Another bid for governor is risky at best; Attorney General Greg Abbott, who’s made a name for himself suing the Obama Administration, already has $18 million in the bank and a significant staff ready for the 2014 race. Perry, however, currently commands a huge lead over Abbott in polls. Polls aren’t nearly so nice when it comes to his presidential aspirations. Perry garnered a paltry 10 percent measure of support in the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, while Ted Cruz, the state’s newly elected senator and a Tea Party favorite, got a whopping 25 percent. Perry faces choppy waters either way, but there’s no question he’s gearing up for a run for something.
No matter what he chooses, it’s hard to imagine anything will be worse than his last campaign.
By: Abby Rapoport, The American Prospect, June 18, 2013
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